January 31, 2017

At first glance, federal appeals judge Neil Gorsuch seems to be a Scalia clone. The president nominated him for the U.S. Supreme Court. Here is the analysis in Politico.

Like the legal thinkers on the far right he believes in an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. That is, he wants to stick with what the founding fathers intended. (As if that even can be reconstructed. Never mind if it's relevant centuries later.)

He is a strong defender of the right to religious beliefs. For example, he ruled that companies, based on their religion, could withhold medical coverage for contraceptive devices.

And he is committed to the courts deciding legal issues, not regulatory bodies. The alt-right wants to blow up many existing regulatory entities.

However, what makes him a wild card in terms of his conservatism is his youth. He is only 49 years old.

A big job like being on SCOTUS can change one, especially someone just entering middle age. There is no predicting how having all the responsibility could influence his legal ideology.

It is well known that John Roberts has not proved out to be the chief justice he was "supposed to be." For example, he defended Obamacare. Roberts took on the job in 2005 when he was 50 years old. That's only one year older than Gorsuch. Neither conservatives nor liberals had the right take on what his legal decision-making would be.

The reality is that professionals change and times change. Already, conservatism seems to be fragmenting as a result of Trumpism. Today, at 21st Century Fox, leaders Lachlan and James Murdoch opposed Trump's immigration order. Historically, the company's Fox News unit had been a bastion of far-right ideology.

The anti-Trump Vanity Fair gleefully reports that The Donald is tuning out the voices of son-in-law Jared and daughter Ivanka.

As family they were supposed to be the next-loudest voices in the West Wing, The loudest, of course, it was expected would be the new president's.

Well, it's turning out - and very quickly - that the only voice in the West Wing's is that of the president. Essentially Jared is being ignored.

Also, his religious commitment not to work from sundown Fridays until sundown Saturday is being used by his father-in-law to operate around him. The immigration order was issued just around sundown last Friday.

As for Ivanka, things haven't turned out much better. Her supposed role was to be smoothing Dad's public rough edges and healing his negative record with females through feminist causes. Increasingly she has been in the background. The exception has been the photo-op of the sliver designer dress that turned off the world.

Worse than muted Jared, Ivanka might even have become a scapegoat. Some of us assigned that function to Kellyanne. But we are re-thinking that maybe The Donald is not above leveraging flesh and blood for his own gain.

It could be that the media will report a moving van outside the newly purchased home of Jared and Ivanka. They might get it that they have no place inside the beltway. New York City is their comfort zone.

Then there is the unthinkable: Back in Manhattan, will the two bruised egos turn on The Donald? That's unlikely. Money talks. And the sound of it always has been louder than the decibel level of Mr. Trump who went to Washington.

The number-one fundamental in branding is that everything is factored in.

Say you are a premium brand in retail cosmetics such as Sephora. No, you don't have a little section in the back with the kinds of $1.99 mascara Wal-Mart stccks. In itself, that could tarnish the consumers' perception of Sephora.

So, it's puzzling that Widener University Delaware Law School would list on its jobs board a help-wanted to work part-time at Payless shoe store. The opportunity isn't in the legal department or at corporate headquarters. It's on the sales floor with the shoes. Here lawyer-journalist at Abovethelaw, Kathleen Rubino, outs this incongruity.

In this era in which law schools are competing for well-qualified students, the brand counts for plenty. Widener's has a major disconnect in how it is positioning and packaging itself.

The meme was The Organization Man trapped in conformity in order to support that version of the American Dream.

Daily the unhappy victim, Tom Rath, took the Metro North commuter train into Manhattan. There he wrote speeches for corporate executives. He was as tormented as Lee from the film "Manchester By the Sea."

Today, of course, we speechwriters probably wouldn't be able to afford living in Westport. More likely the contemporary version of Rath is a partner in BigLaw. He or she may or may not be happy. But, the schools are good. So, whatever.

Westport still carries that identity. And some residents, reports theDaily Mail, don't like that one bit. The flashpoint is an essay contest on "white privilege" sponsored by the town's diversity council - TEAM Westport.

Essentially the contest calls for up to 1,000 words on the controversial subject. Indeed, some believe no such entity exists. After all, didn't our founding fathers in New England have a mighty struggle just to survive.

The award is $1000. People around the world are entering. And, in the process, Westport could go down in history as, yes, a bastion of white privilege. Ironically, the branding might keep increasing property values.

One of the myriad unintended effects of President Donald Trump's immigration order is that the right is fragmenting.

The new leadership at the conservative 21st Century Fox has come out against the ban. Lachlan and James Murdoch, known commonly as "The Murdoch Boys," made the formal statement that the company values the diversity which immigration brings. Here is the media coverage. That has been an essential part of America's strength.

Part of 21st Century Fox is Fox News. Historically, it has been the foundation for conservative ideology in America. It's been conjectured that it, along with the Drudge Report, had been a prime mover in positioning and packaging Trump as the choice for 2016.

Currently on Fox News, Tucker Carlson, who started the highly conservative Daily Caller, is a star. He took the place of bipartisan Megyn Kelly. With Carlson in that slot, viewership surged.

But as the Murdoch Boys gain more control of 21st Century Fox - the father Rupert Murdoch still dominates - we could witness a diluting of the right ideology. That could weaken national support for Trumpism.

The employer at X Company sent me, instead of her administrative assistant, that email by accident. I had applied for a part-time editing assignment. That was 2006. Blogging was still a relatively new medium. And that's how I found out that maybe I shouldn't include that I was a blogger in my cover letter to small or conservative organizations. Obviously, it could scare them.

As the years went by, I was to also discover what else I was putting in cover letters that was, well, scaring employers. Often, I had to figure that out on my own.

For example, both my former colleague at IBM and I applied for communications assignments at a utility in New Jersey. She was invited for an interview. I wasn't.

I made a guess that what turned off the employer was that in the cover letter I made a list of recommendations on how its newsletter could be improved. It is probable that they were scared I was going to be too aggressive. No, I never did that again.

If you are not getting a positive response in your cover letters, review the patterns for what might be scaring employers. For instance, is your tone too enthusiastic? They could assume that you are desperate for a job, any job. Of course, that scares them off.

Takeaway: In this volatile global economy most employers are jittery, Don't put anything in cover letters which will make them even more anxious.

Lead paint, both in the U.S. and abroad, remains a medical hazard to children.

Since they, like D.C. toddler Heavenz Luster, mouth everything they can consume the vestiges of lead paint which remain in older housing.

In the U.S. the residential use of lead paint was banned in the late 1970s. Abroad, it is still legal in many nations and of growing concern. Activists are calling upon Sherwin-Williams and PPG to stop exporting it.

The Washington Post features Luster's story. She has a high level of lead in her blood. Everything from her cognitive abilities to emotional stability could be affected.

The lead paint had been in the housing assigned to the homeless. Luster and her family are now in a motel. Her life-long treatment likely will cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Obviously, lead paint, which was targeted by trial lawyers in the late 1990s and early 21st century, remains a public policy and legal matter. There was a time not so long ago when states filed lawsuits against companies such as Sherwin-Williams for making and selling lead paint before it was banned. With the exception of California, the defendants won those cases.

That was then.

With Luster's plight, the trial lawyers could find the states again ready to create lawsuits. Meanwhile, campaigns continue for Sherwin-Williams and PPG to end the production and export of lead paint.

Rudy Giuliani is one of its shareholders. He went on leave from the law firm to pitch in with the Trump Administration transition. On Fox, Giuliani noted that he helped with the legalities of Donald Trump's immigration order.

Greenberg Traurig went on record as saying that it had no association with what Giuliani had done as a private citizen. That may or may not get that law firm off the hook from being caught up in the growing controversy over the legal status of that order.

In terms of its branding, Jones Day could find itself in a much more difficult situation.

As many know, two of its partners represented the Make American Great campaign. No surprise, a number of Jones Day's lawyers were hired for White House jobs. Initially, that seemed a positive development for the Jones Day brand. After all, it created an aura of influence and power around Jones Day.

That was then.

Quickly darkness fell.

First it was the legal issues related to the immigration order. More recently, it has been the eye-popping firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates. She had informed the Department of Justice that it didn't have to enforce the immigration order.

Some in the media, such as USA Today, position and package that development as analogous to the Nixon Administration's Saturday Night Massacare. I frame it as the Monday Night Massacre.

How do current Jones Day clients and prospective ones perceive the fact that so many former Jones Day lawyers now work in the Trump Administration. Will being represented by Jones Day hurt those clients and prospects in both the courts of law and the courts of public opinion? It's naïve to assume the two spheres don't intersect.

Like Greenberg Traurig, Jones Day may have to come out with an official statement about its relationship with the legal decision-making of the Trump Administration. Should the world view the lawyers in the White House as no longer part of Jones Day?

The conservative Drudge Report has gleefully supported the new president's firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates. It does that by linking to analysis of the Monday Night Massacre by the even more conservative National Review.

Yates' "crime" was that she informed the Justice Department that it should not enforce Donald Trump's immigration order. She has been replaced with Dana Boente.

Obviously the Trump Administration hasn't boned up yet on the separation of powers or how U.S. government was structured as a system of checks and balances. And constitutional law experts such as Harvard Law's Laurence Tribe have put out there the "I" word. That is, "impeachment."

But that's for The Donald to worry about.

The focus is also on how the now-leaderless conservative media has reached a tipping point in supporting this abuse of power. The whole edifice could come down and liberal media such as The New York Times could regain the upper hand. Sure, Fox News could be among the members of conservative media which could take a credibility hit.

Genius about influence and power, Roger Ailes, is gone. That has put all of conservative media in play. No surprise, the rumor is that NBC, which hired Megyn Kelly, wants to rebrand as a kind of Fox News. Given the problems that conservative media had taken on, NBC would be smart to become Conservativism Lite.

Meanwhile, Drudge Report could lose traffic. Those searching for information and insight about the Trump Administration could shop around at other news platforms. For instance, The Wall Street Journal could experience a surge in page views. Its coverage of the Yates' matter, which you can read here, has already attracted almost 3100 comments. The WSJ, owned by Rupert Murdoch, tends to have a conservative mindset.

Drudge's unconditional love for Trumpism could be its fatal flaw. The site which broke the Monicagate story way back then and has thrived since could find itself an outlier. Then, eventually, over. Without page views it can't sell to advertisers.

Also in play could be the branding of major law firm Jones Day. Two of its partners had represented the Make America Great Again campaign.

No surprise, myriad Jones Day lawyers have been hired for White House jobs. Soon enough Jones Day might develop extreme concerns about the implications of this representation. After all, those lawyers had once worked for Jones Day.

Recently, major law firm Greenberg Traurig, where Rudy Giuliani is a shareholder, has distanced itself from the Trump Administration.

January 30, 2017

The conservative Drudge Report headlines with former president Barack Obama as the "Backseat Driver."

Barack is Back.

That's after only a few weeks of no longer being the top dog inside the beltway. His lucky break to have the spotlight shine on him again was the global outrage about the new president's immigration order. Here is the Yahoo coverage Drudge links to.

The former president's move worked. Members of the media are quoting Barack as if there had been no transition of power.

If he continues to read worldwide public opinion right he can command the same kind of press attention as he had when bunking at the White House for two terms.

Through this, Barack can have enormous input on his legacy. The more smackdowns he does on Donald Trump's initiatives the better his eight years in office will wind up being positioned and packaged.

A smart guy, Barack can milk this break for all it's worth. Heck, it might turn out that there will be two presidents again, just as there had been since election night.